Economics might have seemed like a lofty subject when you struggled through it in undergrad, but never is it more important than when facing the daily tribulations of unemployment. The latest unemployment numbers reveal that 9% of Americans are out of work—that’s down from 9.1% last month. Black unemployment dropped to 15.1% (from 16% in September). But that’s little to celebrate when 2.7 million of us are still out of work. So many wonder if it’s a misprioritization when the government focuses on reducing the deficit, rather than working directly to create jobs. So we turned to the experts to answer one not-so-simple question: With 2.7 million African Americans out of work, does it make sense to focus on deficit reduction over job creation?

On the pro debt reduction side, we spoke to Curtis Dubay, Senior Tax Policy Analyst at Heritage Foundation. We tapped Elisabeth Jacobs, a fellow with the Brookings Institute whose work focuses on the domestic labor market, to represent the opposition. We asked both the exact same questions; their answers have been edited only for clarity and space. Give it a read, then head to the comments to tell us where you fall in this debate.

Curtis Dubay, Senior Tax Policy Analyst at Heritage Foundation